


Sleeping with Ghosts

by theskywasblue



Series: 7 Deadly Sins [9]
Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Loss, Siblings, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:32:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jien leaves, Gojyo stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping with Ghosts

Gojyo doesn’t move until it’s dark outside the windows, until his knees start to ache and the pool of blood around his mother’s body has started to dry the color of rust around the edges. She looks like she’s sleeping, almost; except for the tiny trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth. He trails trembling fingers through her hair, too afraid to touch the skin underneath, and it falls back against her cheek with a soft whisper like dead leaves.

There is blood on his shirt, little splatters of it from the twin cuts on his cheek. He rubs at the wounds, wincing at the sting. His back hurts too; everything hurts a little.

When he finally manages to stand, the whole world sways, his stomach lurches, and he thinks for a second that he’s going to be sick. He steps over his mother’s arm, takes three unsteady steps, and catches himself on Jien’s doorframe. He’s tired; suddenly, achingly, miserably tired and he stumbles into Jien’s room, over a few dirty shirts and some tattered books discarded on the floor and crawls under the patchwork quilt, burying himself in its familiar warmth, in Jien’s scent – clean sweat and water warmed by sunshine – he thinks Jien will find him here, warm and safe, when he comes back.

He dreams of Jien, sitting by the kitchen window, peeling red-skinned apples, which bleed all over the tabletop. The blood drips – plink, plink, plink – off the edge of the table and writes out messages across the floor, which go blurry every time Gojyo looks at them.

“What are you doing Jien?”

His brother sets the last apple aside and starts peeling the skin off his arm in those long, perfect ribbons that Gojyo can never manage. “The dirt wouldn’t come off,” he explains, “so I’m taking the skin off instead.”

* * *

Reflecting off Jien’s ceiling, the sunlight looks like water. Gojyo holds his breath until his chest aches, listens to the roar of his heartbeat, listens for sounds in the house, but he is alone.

Mostly alone.

He tries not to look at his mother as he walks past into the bathroom. He’s almost afraid she will have moved during the night or that when he looks at her face she will open her eyes and smile at him.

No, she would be angry. Angry that Jien is gone. Angry that Gojyo has no idea where he is.

Gojyo washes the blood off his face and sees that the cuts on his cheek are starting to heal. He has always healed quickly, but this time he picks the scabs off, opens them up again, and lets the blood drip into the sink. It makes long, pink ribbons when he washes it down the drain.

* * *

Covered with a sheet, the body doesn’t look so bad. Gojyo knows that it’s still there – it’s a little like sweeping dirt under the rug and hoping it will disappear – but at least this way, it doesn’t look so bad. And it won’t be the first thing Jien sees when he walks in the door.

He sits out on the front step for a while, listening to the hum of the insects in the grass. It almost feels like it’s just one of those days where Jien is a little late getting off work. But when Gojyo closes his eyes, all he can see is his brother crying.

He walks down the road, but doesn’t dare go into town. Part of him knows that Jien isn’t there. He’s afraid to look too far, afraid of what he might find – a body, maybe, covered in leaves and grass; or his brother, sobbing, broken.

He’s not sure which scares him more.

* * *

Gojyo falls asleep, wakes up, falls asleep again. He piles all of Jien’s clothes on the bed, stacks all the books in neat little towers, knocks them over and stacks them again. The bread on the counter is mouldy; he picks the green pieces off, eats around them.

He spends hours with his face pressed into Jien’s pillow, jumps at every sound.

The house starts to smell bad – musky-sweet, like rotten fruit.

* * *

He tries to make rice – which always turns out runny, always makes Jien laugh a little at him for not being able to do something so simple – scalds his hand on the hot water, and realizes, suddenly, that Jien is not coming back.

For a long time, all he can do is stand there and watch the water boil over. Then he turns the heat off, grabs the jacket nearest the door – Jien’s jacket, heavy and far too big, flapping in the wind as Gojyo runs so that something like his brother’s ghost seems to chase at his heels – and goes, knowing he’ll never catch up; furious, not at Jien’s betrayal, but his own. Furious at himself for not calling out, furious at himself for not being able to run fast enough, for not being able to _die_ fast enough.

This will be the last time, he thinks, the last time he is ever left behind. Next time he will be the first one to go.

-End-  



End file.
